Arubaito Side Story: The Haunted House
by etsuyo
Summary: As the biggest attraction of Kaiba's new theme park, Yuugi and the others just had to have a look inside. A side story to Arubaito, YYxY pairing.


Arubaito Side Story: The Haunted House

A/N: This story has been written as a side story to my other fic, Arubaito, and takes place between chapters 11 and 12. I've attempted (but probably not succeeded) to make it readable as a stand alone story, but many various mentions of things will probably make more sense having read the other one. That said, this story also has character pairings that won't be featuring in my other writing. Sorry. Please enjoy anyway

Pairing: YYxY

Further Notes:

/Yuugi speaking via super duper telepathic mind link/

//Yami speaking via super duper telepathic mind link//

Disclaimer: Characters, worlds, people, games, and everything else is owned by and copyrighted Kazuki Takahashi. This is a non-for-profit fan work with no particular personal gain in mind. I own the writing and nothing else.

* * *

The fact that the man that greeted them had six missing teeth, a cane with a skull on the handle, a tattoo of a chainsaw dripping with blood on his left arm, and one of his eyes appeared to be making an escape attempt from its socket; was not immediately reassuring. This person must have been getting on in years, as he walked with a limp due to his hunched posture. The cane acted as his third leg, and it wobbled a little bit every time it was replaced onto the ground slightly further in front.

Yuugi frowned. He had begun to wonder why there were so few people around. Surely there should have been more?

He and his friends, this time including the infamous Kaiba Seto and younger brother Mokuba, had trekked their way up the side of a small hill to reach their destination; The Haunted House. It was the main attraction of Kaiba's newest amusement park, and there was no way they were going to miss it. It was the day of the grand opening, and therefore, in a move that was probably largely for publicity's purposes, the CEO himself had decided to tour his carnival. Somewhere along the line Yuugi's friends, including Jonouchi, who had started working for his ex-rival some months ago, had bumped into the brothers and decided to stay and chat. This had worked out quite well as apparently the 'work mates' had had some work related issues that needed to be discussed.

Yuugi himself had never really hated Kaiba. Well, he supposed that wasn't entirely true. There had been instances, for example when the CEO had abducted his grandfather who had subsequently needed to be hospitalized, when he had indeed felt a strong sense of dislike towards the man. But they were all a lot older now. They each attended university, and the CEO was now a proper full-time CEO, whom they were in fact only seeing for the first time in years today.

But it was safe to state that he had never really hated Kaiba in comparison to say, Jou, who had once sworn that given the opportunity he would like to detach the brunet's head with a pair of pliers, burn out the eyes with a soldering gun, chop his body into tiny pieces with a spork and then mail the pieces to Antarctica so that he would finally be as cold on the outside as he was on the inside.

Privately, Yuugi had always suspected that Jou might have meant more than he had said, even if he didn't know it himself. That was… a little hard to understand but to him it made sense. Jou could be quite an impulsive person, and saying things without realizing he was saying them or fully comprehending why he was saying them was something that was entirely typical of him.

Also quite typical of Jou was his fear of all things frightening. The new theme park they were currently attending was named 'Petrified Park', and, as the title would suggest, was focused on the scary and the horror. The man that stood before him, although very appropriately dressed for such a place, seemed to make Jou's eyes widen to resemble dinner plates. No one else seemed quite as fussed, and Yuugi personally thought that the limp and the hunch was a bit 'put on'. Later he would swear that he spied the man stretching to full height to give his back a break when he thought no one was watching.

This 'crippled' old man had greeted them as they began to ascend the deteriorating path in front of the looming house. They had discovered it was indeed a lot bigger up close, as it now towered high above them, causing them to have to literally lean backwards to attempt to see the roof.

You could approach this ride, or attraction, or whatever it was meant to be (he still wasn't sure yet) from any angle and any side of the hill. So he could see other attendees walking through the multitude of optional entrances. He was sure had this been a normal, not-constructed-for-scary-purposes house, it would not have needed so many doors.

And still he felt this did not properly explain why there were not more people there. This was Petrified Parks icon, the giant haunted house that stood visible in the middle of the huge theme park from every place below it.

Although, true enough, it would probably only heighten the experience if there were less people inside. A house crammed with giggling individuals was not very frightening.

"I shall show you inside…" The fake hunchback had clearly spent a great deal of time trying to perfect the voice to go along with his guise. He managed to sound both creepy and unnerving at the same time. He gestured in what he obviously believed was an ominous and scary way, and then proceeded to limp up the path towards the building.

Yuugi and the others followed with a certain level of restrained excitement. Ryugi, who loved scary movies, was grinning from ear to ear. Next to him Honda was rolling his eyes.

There was no lack of appropriate scenery around them to line the path to the door. Grave stones, hanging corpses, empty grave pits and a half buried skeleton of what might have been a cat were all that he managed to get time to look at properly before he found himself on the porch of a very well designed and constructed mansion.

"You live here?" Jou asked Kaiba casually as the guide hurried to open the double doors as creakily as possible.

Most people chuckled, except for Kaiba himself who chose to ignore the comment.

At the fake hunchbacks insistence they swept over the landing and into the large entrance room. It was quite grand. High ceilings and a large staircase leading off in two different directions at the top. Paneled walls painted with dark colours. Imposing paintings of supposed residents or past residents of the house.

Yuugi couldn't help but marvel at the work that had gone into this attraction. It was so well thought out; from the dust on the top of the portraits to the cob webs on the railings.

The guide turned slowly back around to them, his eye glinting; "Enjoy." His voice seemed to echo at least a few times off the walls of the large room. The only sounds following it were the tapping of his stick against the floorboards and he walked past them, closing the front doors on his way out.

It became darker instantly, and although it was the middle of the afternoon, it felt like dusk. No doubt the thick curtains had been installed for this purpose.

"So, now we just wait for a man in a skeleton costume to jump out at us?" Jou almost managed to keep the fright from his voice, despite how obviously cynical the comment was.

Kaiba, this time, graced him with an answer; "That's not how this attraction works."

"So how _does _it work?" Ryugi asked, curiosity overtaking him he had already begun to look around the room.

The CEO cleared his throat, preparing for a lengthy explanation. "The purpose is to simply explore the house. You don't ride a rollercoaster obviously, so one is meant to walk. Find another exit. Be intrepid. No one will be jumping out at you, this attraction is more for show and appreciation, than is designed to shock you into wetting your pants.

But that is not to say it is without it's methods of being frightening," Kaiba was looking around the room also, almost as if he was unfamiliar with the place; "The walls are heavily padded, and sound does not carry well, so you may not hear another approaching. There are trap doors, and very little sources of light, especially further into the house. And naturally, there are a few frightening things to look at along the way."

Yuugi supposed that maybe Kaiba really hadn't been in here very much before, as he seemed to be very interested in looking at the small details. Normally one would overlook these if they had already been seen once.

"Sounds interesting." Honda remarked. Many theme parks, especially the more commercial ones, had attractions like this. To people like Ryou who tended to feel violently ill rather than exhilarated after being on a rollercoaster the change in pace was much appreciated.

Yuugi began to notice just how quiet it was. The cold wind of the season echoed through the house a little too loudly for his liking. The windows rattled in turn.

"So let's get exploring then!" Mokuba said cheerfully, "The last time me and Nii-sama were in here was when there was still scaffolding, so we don't know any short cuts or tricks."

"It'll detract from the effect if we walk around in a large group." Kaiba said off-handedly. Everyone seemed to take that as a cue to partner up with person closest to them. Honda and Ryugi were already half-way out the nearest door before they stopped to hear Jou wail; "Why is it I get stuck with _him_!?"

Yuugi, who had been standing with Ryou, glanced in Jonouchi's direction. He felt a pang of sympathy but thought that at least it would make an interesting story later. Kaiba, to the shorter duelists confusion, didn't seem to be affronted by the pairing at all. In fact he was in the process of telling Jou not to be such a baby and that if he wanted he could swap with Mokuba and Anzu. For some reason Jou seemed to think that was the worse of two evils, and so finally calmed down enough to accept the given decision.

Satisfied, the enthusiastic Ryugi finally managed to drag his partner out of the room. As soon as the door swung shut behind them Yuugi couldn't hear even their footsteps any more.

"Wow, you really _can't _hear anything." He whispered.

"That's what I said." Kaiba was looking around the room trying to decide on an exit. "Over there." He pointed to a door leading in the opposite direction to the ones their friends had just left through. "Let's go mutt."

Jou followed behind with no lack of cursing, and very soon there were only four people left.

"Shall we try the second story?" Ryou suggested.

"I don't see how that's going to find us an exit." Anzu said.

"No, but at least it'll be interesting to look through. We can always go down afterwards. And I'm pretty sure I remember there being a number of staircases, not just this one." Mokuba waved expansively to the large, dominant featuring staircase in the room.

Anzu conceded to this plan, and Mokuba then set off to lead the way. Half way up they decided to head in different directions. Yuugi and Ryou took the right stair, and followed it up to the first floor. They could no longer hear anyone else now.

Up here the light was making a better attempt at entry, although the heavy curtains were still putting up a good fight. It managed to seep in around the edges, and all down the long corridor shafts of light highlighted the excess of dust hanging stagnant in the air.

"Forwards?" Yuugi asked.

Ryou nodded. They walked in silence for a small while, each admiring what they could see of the effort and detail put into the house. They passed many doors leading off to their right, to their left the row of curtained windows remained consistent. Ryou seemed hesitant to enter any of them however, and seemed focused on striding forwards rather than veering off in any other random direction.

Finally, however, they reached the end of the long corridor. A wooden door separated them and whatever lay beyond. Ryou placed his hand on the doorknob and turned.

Nothing happened. They heard the dull knocking sound of the lock remaining in place, even when he tried turning it in the opposite direction. He turned to Yuugi, "Well, what next?"

The windows rattled in irritation and the floorboards groaned. "Try another door." Yuugi said simply, motioning to the others they had passed on the way there.

So they backtracked. Many of them, he wasn't surprised to find, were locked also. A few were open however and it next became the decision of fate as to which they should enter. Ryou picked a door at random. The short corridor behind was almost indiscernible. Very little light was able to reach it, and once the door to the long corridor behind them had closed, they took a moment to stand in the eerie silence and readjust.

The air was heavy with dust, it made Yuugi want to cough. His eyes were slowly becoming used to the darker change, but he decided to reach for the wall next to him before walking forwards anyway.

"Well this isn't even remotely scary." A voice, neither his own nor Ryou's, echoed quite suddenly and loudly around the hall. Ryou let out a small scream at the sudden invasion, and by the looks of it almost had a heart attack.

"D… don't ever… do that again." Ryou gasped.

Even though it was dark there was no mistaking the new arrival. He brushed past them both to examine the corridor ahead, and as he did the light played over his white hair which seemed to work as its own illumination, identifying him immediately if his voice hadn't already been a dead give away.

Bakura had a very distinctive voice. And unfortunately it suited this situation perfectly.

He turned slowly, simply for effect, and Yuugi could just make out the smirk on his considerably evil face.

"Do what again? This party is about as boring as the visits to your elderly English grandmother. Let's go liven things up…" Then he grabbed Ryou's arm in a flourish, and before the latter could finish his 'eep' of surprise, they'd disappeared.

"Wha…?" Yuugi stood, dumbfounded. "Ryou?" His voiced raised slightly higher he called out, but wasn't surprised by the lack of response.

Where the heck had they gotten to?

There were no doors right next to him, just one giant wall hanging. Yuugi realized that this was the most likely place to have vanished behind, and it was so dark he wasn't surprised that he hadn't noticed the exact details of the departure. Sure enough, upon closer inspection there was a hidden door, although it wouldn't budge when he tried to open it.

This time, there was a chance this wasn't staged by the amusement park staff, and rather by Bakura himself. He found he was reluctantly impressed that in the few seconds that the spirit had been out of the Ring that he had noticed this concealment. Yuugi surely never would have spotted it. He supposed that was probably why Bakura was a famous thief and he was not.

Whatever mischief the man had in mind, however, he decided he didn't want to know about it. He let the hanging fall back down again, sighing in defeat. He wasn't a very physically strong person, so the door was impenetrable.

Now that he was all alone, the dark and creepy house was finally beginning to get to him. The ever-present howling, rattling, and creaking caused by the wind. The near-darkness surrounding him. The thick dust and heavy air, making sure he needed to use twice as much energy to take a breath.

He was all alone, he couldn't see, and suddenly the fact that he was a mature aged student really didn't matter anymore. Even older people got scared sometimes. And under the circumstances, he felt his fear was highly justified.

The short-lived appearance of the spirit of the Millennium Ring had reminded him of one important fact however. And that was that he had his own damn spirit too.

/Yami?/ He called, though no sound was made aloud.

The silence endured. There was no response. He waited a few moments, through a few more ominous creeks of wood before he tried again. This time, slightly more desperately.

/YAMI!/

It was an odd feeling, to have something not of yourself stir in your mind, as if waking up from a deep slumber.

//Aibou? You sound distressed. What's wrong?//

/You… don't know where we are?/

There was a silent pause before the spirit replied//I have been sleeping since this morning.//

Yuugi, somewhat guiltily, realized that in fact he hadn't spoken to his other since having a small argument about the cold weather that morning. He hadn't even noticed.

/Oh, sorry./

//It is nothing.//

It was Yuugi's turn to make a hesitant pause.

//Are you alright?//

/Well… um…/

//Do you need help?//

Somewhat inspired by Bakura again, Yuugi replied; /Could you, uh, come out?/

There was a moment in which Yuugi thought he could feel the spirit's confusion, but then all at once he obliged, and Yami stood before him, solid and majestic like he always seemed to appear.

"Thank you." Yuugi said gratefully. Immediately he felt better. With Yami next to him, nothing was scary.

"It's fine. What is wrong?"

Yuugi smiled as brightly as he could, "We're inside the Haunted House. Do you remember seeing it from the ground?"

Yami nodded unsmiling; "What has happened?"

Yuugi retold him of the events taking place in the house, but omitted the rest of the details of the day that Yami had missed, those were unimportant at present and could wait until later to be divulged. Also he didn't want to make his other feel as if he'd been excluded from practically everything.

The spirit's aura seemed to lighten. He wasn't sure what he had expected Yuugi to say, but something more dramatic and threatening had probably been closer to the mark. So in fact the reality of the situation wasn't actually that bad, and he was instantly relieved. Even slightly flattered that Yuugi had sought his company once he felt scared.

Yami nodded, "I understand. Let's find a way out then, Aibou." He gave a small smile and this seemed to cheer Yuugi greatly.

"Which way do you think we should go?" Yuugi asked.

Yami consider his answer. "To go backwards would be pointless as there are no open doors, to go sideways is impossible, so that leaves us with only three other options."

"Uh…" Yuugi had thought that only left them with one.

Yami might have been, in the dark, allowing a smirk to run free, but it was hard to tell. "However as I think, furthermore, that routes both up and down are currently out of the question, forwards would be the best course of direction."

Yuugi restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Besides, Yami wouldn't have been able to see it and then the effect would have been negated. "Okay then, let's go."

Yami didn't need to question whether Yuugi wanted him to stay outside the puzzle for awhile with him or not, he knew that the other man wanted him to. And Yuugi, in turn, was thankful for the fact that he didn't need to sacrifice his pride and actually ask his Other to stay with him. It was, perhaps, a little pathetic to still feel scared at his age, but you couldn't help the things you couldn't help. And he couldn't help the feeling of fear that had come upon him as soon as Ryou had disappeared.

They walked in silence for a little while, broken once when Yami had muttered; "I really wish we had a torch." Yuugi began to notice, however, that slowly but surely the silence was getting less silent.

"Can you hear that?" He whispered.

"Hear what?"

"That…_that!_" Yuugi insisted, straining his own ears for the sound.

"No?" Yami didn't appear very impressed. He could hear the creaking floorboards, the groaning wind and the rattling windows; but he'd been hearing that for the last ten minutes, and was sure this was not what his partner was referring to.

Yuugi stopped dead, and tugged lightly in the direction he thought Yami's arm might have been. Without them moving it was easier to try and hear the mysterious sound Yuugi might have fabricated.

They listened intently.

For a moment there was nothing then… there _was_something else…

"That sort of… scraping noise?" Yami whispered, not quite sure why he was whispering all of a sudden.

"Yeah." Much more convinced of his own sanity now, Yuugi tried to tune it in a little more. "It's coming from down there." His hand flew out to the right, it connected with the wall and he took a few steps forward to follow it along. Then, quite abruptly, his hand was touching nothing, and he realized a new corridor had opened up to them.

Yami squinted into the darkness, but knew that it wasn't really going to make much difference. "Shouldn't we be searching for an exit rather than playing Cluedo?"

"Uh… well…" That was rather the point. Once you started playing Cluedo, you had to finish playing Cluedo. Even if you were only half way through the game and decided to pack up and head for home, you still looked at the middle cards to find out the killer. Inside everyone was a degree of burning desire to solve the mystery. Whether it be a tiny flame or a roaring fire, either could flare up under the right situations. And right now, Yuugi's curiosity had been kindled, and he could not leave the game without finding out just who, where, and with what object that noise was being made.

Besides, Yami was with him, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

"Well… maybe this _is _the way out?" Yuugi concluded, in a rather feeble sounding ruse to make the old Pharaoh comply with his curiosity.

Yami debated the idea. He had little doubt in his mind this was simply a staged sound and prop designed by Kaiba's crack team of horror makers, but he also knew that Yuugi would not be satisfied until he reached the bottom of it. "Fine." He said shortly, and went to stand beside the other duelist in the entrance to the next corridor.

They started down it in silence, and with each step the scrapping noise got louder and louder. Yuugi wanted to ask Yami what he supposed it might be, but at the same time didn't really want the other to start hypothesizing. His answer was sure to be gruesomely honest.

In silence, even a low pitch can sound like a resounding boom. With nothing else to drown it out a single noise is amplified, it seems to swell to compensate for the lack of any other noise. And the closer you got to the source the louder it became. So with every step, the scraping noise got louder and louder. Yuugi found himself becoming tenser and tenser. He was expecting something to jump out at any moment, for a scream, or a flash of light revealing a dead body… it_was _a Haunted House after all.

If there _had _been a light on, general spectators would have been able to observe the anxious look that was plastered on Yuugi's face. Yami, contrarily, appeared a lot more serene. He also knew and expected something to attempt to scare them at any moment, and he was well prepared for it. Yuugi, on the other hand, along with the rest of the known population, knew that something might happen but would still be scared when it did, regardless of the fact that it had been preempted. The reason for this was that although you knew that_something _was coming, you didn't know what or when. In some cases, this only helped to heighten the fear.

And the fear was certainly high.

"Yuugi…"

"Ahh!"

"Calm down."

"Sorry."

Silence.

"What?"

"It's coming from over there…"

Yami was right, and if anyone had been able to see he would have bothered to point to the location he was referring to. Since nobody could he didn't. Instead he put his hand under Yuugi's arm and steered him in the right direction.

Sure enough, the sound was louder and Yuugi knew that they'd finally gotten to the heart of it. And it was somewhere below them near his right ankle. The wall, however, was less than an arm's length away.

"Is it behind this?" Yuugi breathed.

"Is it necessary to find out?" Yami asked a little sarcastically. He would rather his Other avoid the fright of finding out what was causing the noise, and instead go back to trying to find an exit. Sooner rather than later.

Yuugi let his hands trail down the wall, in an attempt to uncover the cause of the noise. He got so far down he was bent over, when just as his fingers nearly met the bottom of the wall Yami suddenly said, "Stop."

Yuugi froze, "What?"

"Wait a moment." There was a clinking of chain and Yuugi, from life-saving past experiences, knew to keep still.

Yami grabbed hold of the Millennium Puzzle around his neck and touched it lightly. It began to glow.

"You didn't think of that earlier?" Yuugi muttered only loud enough that he could hear it.

"Does that satisfy your curiosity?" Yami asked somberly, holding the small light up so that they could see what was making the noise.

Yuugi looked down; inches away from his hand was another. It looked eerily life-like and continued its 'scratch scratch' of the floorboards paying no heed to the light whatsoever. Inside must have been heaps of gears and levers running through the cycle again and again.

In any case, Yuugi was glad to have gotten to the bottom of all this. It put his mind somewhat at ease. In fact, it hardly seemed very scary now. Just a small mechanical hand repeating its scratching pattern to make a scary noise. He suddenly had an all-encompassing urge to poke it.

So he did.

Then he screamed when, instead of the hand continuing it's cycle unperturbed, it instead responded to the threat by grabbing his wrist.

Yami's expression implied that he'd seen better. He sighed.

"Get it off!"

"Well you shouldn't have poked it."

"GET IT OFF!!"

Yami kneeled down to help him. Putting his arms around Yuugi he grabbed his Other's small wrist with his two larger ones and on the count of three they pulled.

The flimsy mechanical prop never knew what hit it. A few seconds later and Yami and Yuugi were sitting in a heap on the other side of the hallway, and the hand was lying five feet away looking very disheveled and trailing wires. It almost looked like it deserved some sympathy.

Yami tried to reach up and rub his head but found that Yuugi was sitting on his arm. He delicately extracted it and inspected the back of his skull for damages.

"I think that's enough excitement for one day," He muttered.

Yuugi didn't appear to be listening, "Oh my GOD, what the heck was that!? What kind of place designs hands that just _grab_ you when you touch them!"

Yami didn't think his host had ever been in a proper Haunted House before, "Yes, well, we really should…"

"I mean, I know it's meant to be scary and all, but that's just like, a real invasion of personal space."

_Really_had never been in a haunted house before. Yami grabbed Yuugi's shoulders and spun him around, "Listen…"

"What if I was by myself and it wouldn't let go? I'd be up here for_hours_ before someone came to check on things!"

"Or someone found your corpse."

Yuugi nodded, clearly still not listening; "Yes, exactly: or someone found my corpse. What then eh? I just sit up here all night and…"

Yami had had enough. There were never going to get out of here if all Yuugi was going to do was babble the rest of the afternoon away. Come to think of it, he'd recently been reading an article about certain types of people who started talking more once they were scared, sort of comforted them and relieved some of the stress. Perhaps Yuugi was one of these types of people?

_Well, too bad, because I'm not._

In one fluid movement that later Yuugi would frown and think that Yami had had perfected for years, the Pharaoh put a hand to the back of the younger one's head and brought his lips to a halt.

With a startled "mph!" Yuugi was forced to stop speaking.

//Shutup//

And for a whole ten seconds, there was no noise at all.

Yami drew back, "Silence is better, see. Now, shall we find a way out of this place?"

"Yami… you… you just…"

"A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice."

Yuugi paused, "Yes."

"Good."

Yami gently stood up and then offered a hand to help the smaller duelist to his feet. Nothing like a good kiss out of nowhere to stun another person into not speaking so that he could spare his precious ears the harm loud noises in a sound proof house could do to them.

They continued on in relative, precious silence, and eventually Yuugi reverted from being stunned to being his normal cheery self again. Well, as cheery as he got while he was still walking amidst a scary house.

By sheer luck they seemed to discover a trick panel in the wall which led them through to a downhill staircase. It seemed idiotic not to take it, and so they descended the steps into what was actually a lighter part of the house. The curtains were less thick down here, and more sunlight could creep in. Revealed by this was at last, a door to the outside world. Yami could tell Yuugi was holding himself back from literally running over to it.

He wrenched the door open with all the eagerness of someone fleeing from a psychopath wielding a meat cleaver. Yami followed with no such item.

The sun was always particularly brighter after having been kept in the dark too long. He was blinking spots for a good ten minutes afterwards.

Initial observations placed everyone else still in the house. Neither of them were fussed however, Yuugi took a seat on an over-sized tree root that was sticking out of the ground, it had a good view of the mansion from which they could wait. Yami preferred to stand.

They waited in silence for a little while, the sounds of the carnival around them filtering up through the air to their ears.

"Yami… um… thank you, for helping me out today." It sounded as if he'd been working up the courage to say this.

The Pharaoh shrugged nonchalantly, "I'm sure you would have found a release switch or something eventually."

Yuugi shook his head, "Not that. Thanks, um, for keeping me company."

"Oh."

"Ah… to think I still get scared of such places at this age!" He laughed.

Yami smiled kindly, "I'm sure you're going to find that you weren't the only one."

Naturally, as with most other things, he was right.

-fin-

* * *

Thanks for reading, please let me know what you thought!

-Etsuyo


End file.
